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The Diablo 3 Podcast #162: Season Two, Weekend OneSeason Two began on Friday, and it’s time to recap the weekend. Rushing races, preparing for level 70, RNG heartbreaks, fast leveling strategies, new season camaraderie, and more. Featuring N3rdwards, Master X, m0uikkai, Amedon, and Flux. This show features two separate twenty-five minute conversations, going quick and getting to the heart of the S2 rushing […]

The Diablo 3 Podcast #161: Season Two Pre-Game ShowReaper of Souls Season Two is upon us! How best to reach 70 and beyond, which of the new Season Two Legendary Items are intriguing, and more. Plus a bonus debate on the controversial Realm of Trials. Show features Wolfpaq, N3rdwards, and Flux, plus bonus first time guests Tyr, Master X, and m0uikkai. This show […]

Reaper of Souls Prep Quick Facts: Transmog, Materials, Enchanting

I see the same questions come up all the time in clan chat, and when a few of them appeared on the b.net forums, they received Blue replies. For example, people keep asking if they should hold onto legendaries and not ID them until Reaper of Souls, to get that Transmog property. The answer, of course, is that you should hold onto your un’ID’ed legs until there’s an intense conversation going on in the Clan chat, and then ID like 10 of them at once. Blue agrees!

Will the Legendary gear I find in 2.0 unlock transmog for the Exp??? Or will it only unlock Transmog AFTER the exp arrives? My understanding is you unlock the transmog when you ID the legendary.
Legendary items found in patch 2.0.1 will unlock as Transmogrify options, and you do not need to wait for Reaper of Souls goes live to ID them. If you find a Legendary item in patch 2.0.1, then you should have the option to use it for Transmogrification once you upgrade to Reaper of Souls, and have access to the Mystic.

Another daily question regards Enchanting and “legacy” items. The answer is that items you find in Loot 2.0 are *not* legacy items. Only gear from the longlongago counts as legacy, so anything found in the current patch can be enchanted in Reaper of Souls, once you drag the Mystic out from under that heap of corpses like a Kardashian on her wedding night.

I am wondering how the RoS enchanting will work on your crafted BoA gear. There was a post explaining that all gear before 2.0 would be considered legacy and could not be used with the enchanter to improve stats. So now that we are post 2.0, does that mean that any BoA gear I make (Archon chest, amulet, gloves, bracers, shoulders) will be enchantable in RoS?
Grimiku: The items you’re crafting (or finding) right now will be Enchantable in Reaper of Souls. The crafting recipes your Artisans already know have all been updated to make loot 2.0 versions of those items, even if you learned the recipe prior to patch 2.0.1. This means anything you make (or made after patch 2.0.1) will be Enchantable. Keep in mind that there are some other limitations to Enchanting that might prohibit an item from being Enchanted (for example you can’t enchant Magical items).

Click through for the additional questions on Quest Reward items, new Paragon Portraits, and the open-ended, “what should I be doing to prepare for Reaper of Souls?” question, which is also asked almost every day in Clan chat. The only certain answer is “build up exp/Paragon Points” but there’s more nuance to it than that.

Will there be additional Paragon Portrait art added for levels past 100 or are we just gonna have to be stuck with the same one for a long time?
Grimiku: We don’t have any current plans to add more Paragon portraits for players beyond Paragon 100, but we’ve definitely discussed the idea. We’ll keep an eye on everyone’s feedback, though, and see what happens as players spend more time with the new system.

Showing how closely I pay attention to the cosmetic details, I assumed there were additional arts, since every 10 levels past 100 you get a splashy graphic that says new portrait unlocked. Apparently the system is just set to pop up that notification text every 10th level, which was enough to satisfy me. Placebo effect!

Elsewhere, a fan asked about the blue or yellow item you get as a reward for completing some quests. The item can be pretty useful when you’re leveling up, while it’s generally just another material-to-be in the end game. But what if it could be more for-special?

Is it possible to get a legendary off of quest rewards?
Grimiku: We noticed that quest reward items felt like a nice little addition on the console version of Diablo III, and that’s why we decided to bring them over. The way they work right now is, quest rewards are randomly generated items of Magical or Rare quality. It’s not currently possible to get a Legendary item as a quest reward, but that’s good feedback.

Speaking of things that come up every day in clan chat…

If player in Hardcore dies notify in clan chat. So members could see it
Vaneras: Interesting idea for sure.

Just out of curiosity, what would you prefer to see if something like this was implemented for Hardcore clans—I mean would a simple auto generated post in the chat be sufficient, or should there be a notification sound as well? Or would you instead prefer some kind of pop up toast splash on your screen when a HC character dies, or would you only want to see this kind of thing for high level characters? Or maybe some completely different form of notification not yet mentioned?

Dramatic Hardcore death is dramatic.

The first day of D3v2 when our IncHC wasn’t even maxed out yet, I saw this non-notification in action and fired off an impassioned email to a Blizzard contact, requesting that it be added. In the nature of such things my reply was along the lines of, “Thanks for the suggestion I’ll be sure to forward it to the clans/community developers!” so it might appear any time between today and never. But it’s such an obviously-desired feature, and one that I can’t see any downside to, which gives me hope that we’ll get it. The question of course is when, since it’s just up to the programmers to see if/when they can implement it.

As for the appearance, in my first email to Bliz I suggested the notification be dramatic, like a chipmunk prairie dog. I’m talking blood red letters with black drop shadow and glowing flames and jaw-chattering skulls as dots over the “i” and “j” letters. I’m open to suggestions that it should be even less subtle than that, though.